1935 Anzac Day my mother’s memories

“When she was seven years of age Patricia gleaned insights when her Dad took her with him to the mid-morning Anzac Day marches. He would look resplendent in a suit with his medals pinned in a colourful and glistening row across his coat. She is proud of his contribution to the war-effort, though saddened of its continual intrusion on his disposition, robbing him of his vitality, and causing an inability to keep past horrors in the past. On Anzac Day though things seemed to be different, certainly a remembering might have been the focus, but it was more than that, not so much recounting the horrors witnessed as reliving a bond beyond differences of education or social standing. This is a bond where your life or death could be dependent upon another, as likewise their existence might also be dependent upon you. The resulting bonds carved a lifelong deep respect and camaraderie irrespective of either geographic distance, or only a periodic encounter once a year.

One aspect still puzzles Patricia: how did the Aboriginal man Billy after being on walkabout in the country arrive in Sydney ready each Anzac Day to march? She didn’t know how Billy would realise, when he was in the ‘middle of nowhere’ in the bush or outback with little or no communication, what day it was or how long it would take to get to Sydney – and arrive in time to take his place with men he fought alongside. Patricia’s Dad had great affection for Billy, which was evident in her Dad’s stories about this special man. Even though this country didn’t recognise Aboriginal people as citizens, Billy, along with other men and women of native descent, responded to the call to defend King and Country. They were not officially acknowledged except by the men and women who knew personally of their bravery and sacrifice. Patricia could see how much Anzac Day meant for her Dad and she always felt privileged to watch him in the morning march.”

It was after the George Street march that the officialness of the Day lifted as the local hotel became the venue for a more light-hearted remembrance over a beer.^^ Patricia went with her Dad and, with a glass of lemonade in her hand, would observe faces of experience that told of cruelties one should never have to encounter. This warm vibrant hub of safety is a place where memories stir, and stories are told and retold. She would hear the names of towns, mainly in France, but could not imagine the full horror – neither her Dad nor other men spoke in detail of what they had witnessed and endured.

Patricia's [school] history books show the carnage, desperation and, at times, photographs of the utter futility and exhaustion. These men in the pub give a human face to the newsprint and celluloid images shown on newsreels at the theatre."
Extract from What Glass Ceiling? Patricia Julianne Evans (nee Morris) a memoir Suzanne Newnham, 2021

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​At the end of the 1996-2001 Afghanistan War,
a 9-year-old boy was asked if he liked peace.
He replied that he didn’t know what peace was
​but as his parents were finally happy, he liked Peace.